The latest from Center on Communication Leadership & Policy Senior Fellows

USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy Senior Fellow Geneva Overholser was featured on PBS NewsHour to discuss national security and surveillance reporting in light of the recent Pulitzer Prize awards.

Overholser, who is also a former professor and director of USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism, said that while the stories didn’t require a lot of “deep-digging reporting” because they were based on stolen documents, leaked by Edward Snowden, they still deserved the Pulitzer.

“It was awarded to the most affecting story of this year, in my view,” said Overholser. “I mean, this story had enormous impact.”

She added that the Pulitzer board’s decision to award the coverage of national security and surveillance is “an extremely powerful affirmation of this important work.”


CCLP Senior Fellow Adam Clayton Powell III recently wrote a blog post about the use of mobile phones for medical treatment in Asia and Africa.

“The potential for these devices is extraordinary: a wave of repurposed consumer devices as medical instruments are helping eradicate entire diseases in developing nations – and could be critical innovations in rural areas of the U.S. that are underserved by medical care facilities,” wrote Powell. “As mobile phones become a new universal medium in America, the impact can be enormous.”


In a recent story from CCLP Senior Fellow David Westphal, he analyzed claims that the newspaper is on the verge of extinction.

“Newspapers may well be on the road to marginalization in the news and information world,” wrote Westphal. “For the moment, though, they're still its big financial and news-gathering engine. And, I would say, their printed publications are not fading away nearly as quickly as I thought they might.”